New Movie Review: The World's End (2013) - Edgar Wright

"We're going to see this through to the bitter end. Or... lager end."  - Garry King

          For anyone to make a film that not only balances the elements of Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz (it's sister films) and introduces a few of its own, they'd have to be a mad man or Edgar Wright, the director of the massively popular Cornetto Trilogy. To call World's End the concluding chapter of this trilogy it to miss the point of this trilogy, it been British-ify-ing popular genres (Zombie & Buddy Cop respectively) while gently parodying them at the same time. While I could go on about the similarities, nods and links between these film's (and maybe I will sometime), for now I'm here to review The World's End as it's own film.

          The film starts off with five estranged friends reuniting twenty years after their secondary (American's read: High-) school graduation and trying to complete their hometown's legendary pub crawl and in the hopes of the groups de-facto leader Gary King (Simon Pegg) finish what they started and recapture their glory days. I have to admit, I loved the start of this film I would of loved to of seen what Edgar Wright would of done with these characters and how he would of developed the story had this not of been part of the Cornetto Trilogy, Mint Cornetto in this case, incase you were wondering. But instead just as the reunion film is about to reach its conflict and gets really interesting, the aliens show up, which we should of been looking forward to, instead signals a complete tonal shift in the film and the dropping of most of the major elements of the reunion film, which is a pity as that would of been as equally an interesting picture. From this point on though the film does get more funny and was genuinely one of the funniest films I've seen in ages, it also becomes more of an action film, with Wright bringing all the skills and techniques he learned from Scott Pilgrim vs. The World to the fight scenes.

          From here on out the review gets tricky, as I don't want to spoil the film and want instead you to go see it. So maybe I'll wrap up my review here, for now and tell you that I loved this film and that it definitely holds up against Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz and is worth checking out in the cinema. Hopefully once this films been out a bit longer I'll get around to reviewing it in more detail. But for now the film gets a 9/10.

DVD/BluRay Movie Reivew: Cloud Atlas (2012) - Lana and Andy Wachowski and Tom Tykwer

"Our lives are not our own. From womb to tomb, we are bound to others. Past and present. And by each crime and every kindness, we birth our future." - Sonmi-451

          Cloud Atlas, wow just wow, where do I start? I guess I should start by telling you where this films story came from, it's based on David Mitchell's novel of the same name which is made up of 6 individual stories split in two and interwoven by characters, themes and souls. The 6 stories takes place in different periods between 1849 - 2321 and follow their own "Comet's" struggle to make a change in the world. The characters in all of the time periods are played by the same actors and each actor has up to 6 different roles they play. The movie differs from the layout of the novel in that instead of showing half of each story in chronological order and the whole of the 2321 story and then the second half of each other story in reverse chronological order, it instead chops up each story and interweaves them using similar setting/actions/opposite outcomes of a situation's as the cutting point.

          Cloud Atlas is one of those films that rewards repeat viewings and it is only by repeat viewing that you will notice little minor details that link the stories besides the overarching themes and obvious similarities. For me the most striking theme was that of slavery and how those in charge/a position of power will often abuse that power and take advantage of people with the obvious example in 1849 of it being actual slavery to the 2012 stories locking up old people in a nursing home to the 2144 Neo Seoul example of a genetically breed servant class being created. Now their are other themes such as redemption (of a soul), love, corruption of power and many more, their is no wrong way to interpret this film.

          I would love to talk about the story but with the film being nearly three hours long and each of the 6 stories all being so different it would make this review unreadable, and that is one of the negative points of this film, it's length. At times it feels very much like a film lovers film, in that it can be jarring and hard to follow at time and definitely rewards repeat viewing as I previously mentioned, but if you love film like I do this film is perfect for you, but if your more of a casual film lover maybe this film isn't for you. I'm sure everyone who invests the time in this film will love it, but getting people to commit the time is the problem, it flies in the face of traditional Hollywood wisdom and maybe for that reason alone it deserves a watch.

          I would be doing the film a great injustice if I didn't mention how stunning it is, the special effects are amazing and like all good special effects are not noticeable, the prosthetics and facial make-up at first are jarring but once you get used to them you don't notice them and instead see how one person can evolve or de-evolve through out the course of the film.

          So in conclusion for me the film was a 9/10, but I don't think I could recommend this film to everyone, but if you love film and don't mind investing the time and energy into following a complicated story then Cloud Atlas is definitely worth the effort.

New Movie Review: Pacific Rim

It's been so long since my last review, I nearly don't know where to start, I'm hoping these reviews will be more regular and that I'll be getting to more films as they come out in the cinema, especially since now I live near a cinema again. I guess I should get on with the review.

"Today at the edge of our hope, at the end of our time, we have chosen to believe in each other. Today we face the monsters that are at our door! Today we are cancelling the apocalypse!"

          Pacific Rim is the latest film sci-fi film by Mexican director Guillermo del Toro, so if you are familiar with del Toro's work you'll know to expect, a film that's not only visually stunning but one that also has an interesting story that weaves everything together. Pacific Rim takes it inspiration from the Japanese genres of Kaiju movies (i.e. Godzilla) and blends it with another Japanese (mostly anime) staple the mecha genre (think power rangers/transformers except bigger robots) and made them its own.

          The story is set in the not to distant future, when monsters (Kaiju) rise from an inter-dimensional portal in the Pacific ocean, at first they overwhelm our conventional military forces and are barely taken down after days of fighting. As the Kaiju attacks start to become more frequent the worlds leaders come together in order to come up with a solution to fighting these colossal beasts, they're solution are Jaeger's immense robots designed to fight these monsters. The Jaeger's require two pilots working in tandem in order for them to function, as it is too much strain for one individual on their own. For a time the Jaeger's work and seem to stem the advance of the Kaiju, but this is short lived and as the Kaiju keep coming they seem to adapt to the Jaeger's and grow in size, this leads the worlds leaders to instead pursue a giant wall blocking off the pacific ocean. Now I do realise there are a few spoilers in the previous section but this is only the first twenty minutes of the film and are given away in the trailers.

          I'd rather not spoil the rest of the film, but I will say the story is very well thought out and makes you care for the characters and also their struggle to save the world.

          I have to mention the CGI simply put its amazing, the character design's are all unique and extremely different, each Kaiju is unique and so are the Jaeger's seen in the film. The most impressive part of the CGI though is the fact it tricks you into forgetting that these things don't exist, it shows a great understanding of the ability of CGI by del Toro and the amazing things those animators can do when given time to do their job properly, in fact I believe that the CGI sections were all decided in advance of the film even shooting so as to give the animators the time to truly make everything look believable and add in those small details that really help to sell the shots.

          The gamer in me loved the fact the GLaDOS (Ellen McLain from the Portal games) was the voive of Gipsy Danger's (the main Jaeger) AI, even if I did feel a little uneasy trusting her. Acting wise Idris Elba steals the show, I even used his speech as the introduction, Rinko Kikuchi is also good as Mako and Charlie Hunnam is fine as the main character despite what I've heard others say, everyone else do a great job as well with their characters.

          So weighing everything up about the film would I recommend it? Yes its an amazing film, but I cannot say that everyone will like it. If your a fan of summer blockbusters definitely go see it, you'll love it, if your a movie fan who can appreciate a film for what it is and likes to read into things you'll enjoy it too, but if sci-fi's and summer blockbusters aren't your thing I don't think you'll like the film, which isn't the films fault and is your loss but if you don't like these kind of films you don't like them. So score wise I'd give Pacific Rim 9/10, pretty much the perfect summer block buster but won't convert those who don't like the genre.